


Nothing, nothing

by astraielle, ghoulaesthetics (astraielle)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Pre-Relationship, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 04:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20109364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astraielle/pseuds/astraielle, https://archiveofourown.org/users/astraielle/pseuds/ghoulaesthetics
Summary: He’s never seen Tabris with her hair loose.





	Nothing, nothing

He’s never seen Tabris with her hair loose. 

It seems like such a trivial thing--they are, after all, living away from anything resembling a town in a makeshift campsite that moves every week or two. Most of them sleep in their armour, or at least their day clothes, and no one’s really taken the time to bother looking relaxed yet. 

Logically, Alistair supposed she must’ve taken it out of the practical bun-style at some points. At night, maybe, in the tent. Or perhaps when she disappeared with Leliana or Morrigan and made for the stream--hot baths were a luxury they didn’t have. Loose black strands usually framed her face, but even those looked strategic somehow. A deliberate style, meant to obscure her gaze from strangers staring at her in profile. 

He’s imagined how she might look, for no real reason aside from... well, admittedly he’s just plain curious. But he also thinks that she would probably look rather pretty (not that she doesn’t now, and really, that’s not even that important considering she’s willing to travel across Ferelden on what he’s half-sure is a fool’s errand to raise an army to defeat the Blight). Pretty means relaxed, and relaxed means she probably won’t be as short with everyone around camp. The might even be able to have at least one conversation without stepping on any toes, and wouldn’t that be something?

(In his defence, he had no idea how bad it was in the Alienage, or that flaying the nobleman who raped her cousin and was planning worse for her was ultimately how she ended up in Ostagar. And how could she have known who Ducan was to him? Apologies had been made, and they were sincere. Words were tossed about unthinkingly as they each tried to sort through their grief and anxiety. But it certainly didn’t make any of it less awkward.) 

But tonight at camp, she’s finally wearing it down, hunched over and polishing her sword by the campfire. He’s trying to make it less than obvious, not so much because he’s worried that she’ll notice, but someone else might--Leliana and Zevran will tease, not unkindly, or maybe Morrigan would take the opportunity to throw some barbs his way, and any of those things would end up getting Falka’s attention. 

And that’s not something that he really wants either. They’ve settled into an odd peace. He still wrinkles his nose when he recalls that Morrigan, of all people, seemed to be the one she drifted towards first, and that had put him off of his fellow warden initially. But the thing is, when she’s not bristling or reacting to some slight (accidental, falsely perceived, or true), she’s_ funny_. Tabris is clever, doesn’t get bothered by his sarcasm as long as they avoid touchy subjects. She takes whatever he throws at her and spins it right back on him twofold, and he feels like they could go on that way forever if allowed to. Prickly, sure, but he can’t exactly blame her--it might not be something he considers himself to be, but he knows a thing or two about reacting to people who never wanted to give you a chance in the first place. Alistair would prefer those in that category ignored him entirely; Tabris couldn’t give a damn about what they think of her, and to be honest, he finds that quietly admirable. 

He was right, though, because _Maker_, she was nice to look at outside of her armour. _(No, no, not like that--this is just--regular clothes, see? Pants and a tunic and--no shoes, because hers are probably in the tent, and it’s time to wind down, but still_.) 

He’s not close to her, exactly, sitting two logs over. But he can see the way the firelight reflects off of sea-grey eyes, the golden ring piercing the centre of her lower lip glinting in the dusk, how she wouldn’t really be considered ‘freckled,’ but for the first time he’s getting a good look at the pale beauty spot on her neck, and thinks it’s a little cute how it seems to join in a line of three with the one under her eye and beside her mouth. There are faint, crisscrossing scars, paler than the rest of her skin, on her hands--slim hands, pretty hands, hands he knew would be full of a fighter’s telltale callouses. Cooking wounds, some of them. Others are from early swordplay lessons, and he knows them well in spite of their style differences. (She fights two-handed, and it had surprised him at first, because most Wardens who took up the sword _wanted_ a shield, but he supposes the ferocity more than makes up for a lack of protection). There are other scars on those hands too, ones with a more careful placement, too careful to be accidental, and it doesn’t take any particular genius to sort out their origin. He realizes it’s the first time he’s seen her without gloves. 

The hair is what has him fixed, though. Long, mostly a deep black, hanging in the softest of waves past her shoulders and down her ribcage. He’s seen the silver-white strands before, all spun up and tied back with the rest of her hair. Honestly, he assumed that the stark patch against the inky black of the rest of her head had been dyed when they met. An alienage fashion statement, maybe. But it’s been nearly a month now that he’s seen her every day, and he’s taken the shears to his own hair in that time. The white patch doesn’t grow out dark like he assumed it eventually would. It just stays as it is, perhaps starting out even lighter at the root. He’s never seen anything like it before on anyone, even if he recalls some recruits joking about going grey from pre-Joining stress. 

The distinct crease between her brows indicates concentration, and Alistair is free to make observations. Morrigan is far across the clearing at her own fire, and no one else seems to be inclined to sit down. He sips at his canteen and lets the water wet his lips without really drinking anything. 

He could like her, he thinks. As a_ friend_. That’s the caveat. Because she’s pretty, sure, and maybe they get along, and maybe she’s given him more of her time of day than he even realized was possible to _be_ given, but--

They’ve got a job to do, haven’t they? One big, long journey that’s probably only going to end in despair, even if he says otherwise out loud. There’s a handful of them sitting in the same camp, staring down at Loghain’s army _and _the Darkspawn, and it’s difficult for Alistair to conceptualize moving past where they’ve already landed. And he can live with that, probably, because he doesn’t really see any of them making it out of this, at least not in one piece, and--

“What?” 

He blinks. She’s stopped polishing the blade, and the sea-grey eyes that he just watched dance against the flame are now fixed on him.

“I--err...” He blinks again, wildly aware of how stupid he sounds. “Your hair,” he blurts, because it’s the least weird-thought he’s had so far. 

“My hair,” she repeats flatly, one eyebrow raising as she looks back at him. “What about it, exactly, has you so interested?”

“Do you--is that how you keep it? On purpose I mean. With the... you know.” He gestures to the side of his head where her pale streak would theoretically be growing out of, if they were facing the same way. 

“You think I’ve kept up with a hair dye while fighting Darkspawn and avoiding Loghain, living on the side of the road.” It’s not a question, and he can’t read her face. Suddenly the most harmless comment he could envision sharing is making him want to disappear into his boots. 

“My second guess was magic?” He jokes weakly, and she doesn’t laugh, but she does soften a bit around the mouth, and he feels himself exhale. 

She regards him for another beat before picking up her blade and polishing cloth again. “I was born with it,” she says simply, instead of playing into the joke--which is fine, because it wasn’t that good, and there weren’t many places to go off it. Morrigan had the monopoly on the ‘big, scary apostate’ act, anyway. No sense in Tabris picking it up too.

“Oh. That’s all?” 

“That’s all,” she shrugs. “No curses or witches or demons. Think someone told me that my grandfather on my mum’s side had the same thing, but I could be wrong. It’s just there.” 

“Huh.” He doesn’t say anything more, because he’s too afraid he might say something weird about her eyes or her skin next, and he’s not trying to set them back to square one singlehandedly. That question, at least was probably one she had gotten before. It probably wouldn’t even have been as noticeable if the surrounding hair wasn’t so dark. 

He leaves it, because the conversation is over, but he wonders if it would have been less strange if he had just said she looked pretty, and no more.


End file.
